It's the same "dey wanna take away teh artistik freedums!" argument in a new can.
Nowhere have we said that we want to not let them draw cheesecake. We just want a better selection of characters- preferably not an entire roster of characters that could pass for Playboy models or porn stars. I mean, if you're going to ratchet up the immersion, wouldn't you want a character you could identify with instead of something you're forced to play?
Dragon's Crown has non-cheesecake female characters. Actually it arguably has only ONE cheesecake female character (and that's being pretty loose with "cheesecake", since the sorceress is pretty fugly), yet the artist was called a 14 year old, as well as anyone who liked the chars and forced to apologize afterwards.
Of course art needs critics, but some of these particular cases remind me more of self-appointed media watchdogs than of civilized critics. And given how the internet has this tendency to overreact and turn everything into a witch hunt maybe, just maybe, we should all try to think reasonably for a moment instead of jumping into the offended bandwagon.
Maybe the artist should think reasonably for a moment before drawing something like this and expecting people to treat him like a mature adult:
She is molesting a skeleton with breasts larger than watermelons while she jams a rod between her butt cheecks. She is twisting mid-torso (impossibly) to show us her tits and her ass. Her nipples are covered in the sense that there is lacy white lingerie over them, but that's only because they are unrealistically far down on her breasts, and she's showing as much leg as she can without wearing a thong. And another character is in a chainmail bikini.
It's the same "dey wanna take away teh artistik freedums!" argument in a new can.
Nowhere have we said that we want to not let them draw cheesecake. We just want a better selection of characters- preferably not an entire roster of characters that could pass for Playboy models or porn stars. I mean, if you're going to ratchet up the immersion, wouldn't you want a character you could identify with instead of something you're forced to play?
Dragon's Crown has non-cheesecake female characters. Actually it arguably has only ONE cheesecake female character (and that's being pretty loose with "cheesecake", since the sorceress is pretty fugly), yet the artist was called a 14 year old, as well as anyone who liked the chars and forced to apologize afterwards.
Of course art needs critics, but some of these particular cases remind me more of self-appointed media watchdogs than of civilized critics. And given how the internet has this tendency to overreact and turn everything into a witch hunt maybe, just maybe, we should all try to think reasonably for a moment instead of jumping into the offended bandwagon.
dragons crown has scantily clad women. don't argue the toss. that's cheesecake. he wasn't forced to apologize, he made an ok apology after he recognized that feelings were hurt. which is basic human decency.
and stop implying that the people offended by this are overreacting or being irrational or whatever.
I love how that picture is "arguably" cheesecake because she is "pretty fugly." That picture is two feet of clothing away from being pornography. And I love the idea that people who got bent out of shape about it were "more of self-appointed media watchdogs" than "civilized critics." Show that shit to a legitimate art critic. See how long it takes them to stop laughing - at least, those who don't just immediately ignore it as the work of a juvenile mind.
also i'm pretty tired of this argument back and forth
"you're censoring people's freems to say whatever gross, harmful shit they want to say"
"no, i'm not, i'm just using my freem to criticize you"
"well it sounds pretty authoritative, stop censoring" etc.
cards on the table? if forced to choose between putting a censor on sexist/racist/etc. art and not doing that, i'd put it on. now we don't have the poisonous sewer flowing directly into our water supply, so i'm not too broken up about the filter preventing some of the diamonds getting through- let's be honest, it's not like that's even happening right now, there's not a plethora of artists making subversive ironic art that only seems sexist on the surface or whatever.
but hey, since that's not something anyone in this thread has in their power, looks like any talk of censorship is nothing to do with anything. nobody's actually going to censor something, even if they literally call for a censor on it! if you're objecting to criticism because it's too much like censorship, you're objecting to the tone of the argument, not the argument.
I don't care what art critics say, or anyone for that matter, if they don't like the art that's fine, I don't like it myself because overall it all looks pretty ridiculous to me. But that STILL does not justify engaging into personal attacks against someone you don't know because he drew something you don't like. Yes, I think personal attacks are out of line and an overreaction in this particular case. And I'm not going to turn this into a long-drawn argument because it's not going to get us anywhere. You think it's fine and dandy to insult people over things like this, I think you have no right, and that's that.
Do people think criticize means insult? Is that the hang-up? Because that would explain a lot.
Also, I, just like you, have every right to insult an artist I don't like. I usually don't jump right to that, but the right, morally and legally, very much exists.
I don't care what art critics say, or anyone for that matter, if they don't like the art that's fine, I don't like it myself because overall it all looks pretty ridiculous to me. But that STILL does not justify engaging into personal attacks against someone you don't know because he drew something you don't like. Yes, I think personal attacks are out of line and an overreaction in this particular case. And I'm not going to turn this into a long-drawn argument because it's not going to get us anywhere. You think it's fine and dandy to insult people over things like this, I think you have no right, and that's that.
What personal attacks are you talking about? Please provide quotes.
You know, the sad thing here, is, I actually agreed with you guys on the overall thread topic.
Please be careful with how you treat artistic expression in discussion. It's very very important to society, and when we start telling people what and how they should and shouldn't (not "i think you should/shouldn't", there IS a difference) create, we start getting into tricky, if not dangerous territory. Equally, please always respect the right of the audience to NOT like/not agree with/react negatively to a work. (Just cause someone made it doesn't mean you have to like it...)
@dporowski, for an issue that you were "inclined to defend vigorously" because of its dire importance in free society, you pretty quickly fall back on ducking arguments and resorting to empty phrases about "dangerous territory" and vague, unspecified consequence. Please imagine that you are not the only person to grow up in a society that extols free expression in its marrow and that perhaps when people say that "I think..." is not a magic talisman phrase that neutralizes any concept that follows it, they might be right.
Hey. I got a question, specifically about the Metroid examples posted earlier. The exact phrase used was "various states of undress". But uh... there was no variance. The only other option besides tank top and shorts was... a shot of her with the helmet off. Still in the armor, just no helmet in a "hi, I'm actually a girl" statement. Hell, this was the only reward in Metroid Prime.
@The Wolfman, Prime was great! That was Retro's doing—they shot for a more realistic, respectful depiction. Of course for the sequels word from the brass came down saying they needed to showcase the new zero suit and the design needed to be changed, but for their part Retro did what they could. Their 100% endings even showed cliffhangers for the next game, which is a much more interesting reward.
Super Metroid alone is not an egregious example, it's just part of the trend (e.g., do better = see more), which is why Metroid is brought up in that conversation in the first place. The first game had a leotard and then further a bikini at its highest clears, and her outfit later became whatever showed off her legs and belly best. There's nothing wrong with a helmet expose to show the identity of the intrepid armored protagonist, there isn't a problem inherent to showing her chilling out out of her armor, but when women are relentlessly objectified as an accepted thing rewarding player success with showing more skin is an issue. This is why the zero suit didn't just come out of nowhere—it was part of a trend of Samus's body being a reward.
Of course art needs critics, but some of these particular cases remind me more of self-appointed media watchdogs than of civilized critics. And given how the internet has this tendency to overreact and turn everything into a witch hunt maybe, just maybe, we should all try to think reasonably for a moment instead of jumping into the offended bandwagon.
At what point exactly did people debating an issue turn from thinking "reasonably" to merely "being offended," which—like the politically engineered term "politically correct"—is just a thing people say to express disapproval without having to argue it? As has been mentioned again in the past few pages, no one cares about being offended (picture me fanning my face melodramatically), they care because it's a problem. If you don't think it's a problem then argue the reasons instead of these repeated attempts we've seen to use loaded language like "censorship" or "crusades" or "witch hunt" and then consider the matter won.
I've been working hard on this list everybody, let me see if I've got it right:
What People Are Allowed to Criticize (aka Censor)
Other peoples' criticism of art (especially important art, like a woman twisting herself so that we get to see her tits and her ass)
Generally bad feminist arguments that lead to the above
Insults that hurt an artist's feelings
What People Are Not Allowed to Criticize (aka Censor)
Art Pornography this is art Sexist representations of women that hurt someone's feelings this is art Samus stripping as players do better so that titillation keeps men playing probably art
I get the sense that, on all sides of these fracases, the eternity of these discussions isn't fully fathomed. The discussions, once public, inevitably come to be dominated not by those arguing one side or the other but by those wearily begging to know when we can "just get back to talking about games." Too many, in my estimation, seem to approach controversies in gaming (or anywhere in "geek media," really) through the prism of a version of the Eden Fallacy; believing that some perfect conflict free space not only existed at some point but is in fact the natural order of the world, thus leading them to see debates and discussions of this nature within gaming as unwelcome deviations to be solved and put to rest rather than part of an evolving, ongoing communication. "Please, oh please; just tell us what has to happen for both of you to shut up about sexism or bigotry or all this other stuff so we can get back to figuring out whether Quick Man can outrun Sonic!"
But there is no end to this, and I feel like a lack of understanding (or even considering that) is what muddies the waters in these moments. It's hard enough to have a proper conversation about anything when both sides are being shouted at to force themselves into some kind of untenable compromise by people who think the whole thing just needs to go away. It doesn't, and it can't. Certain things will never line up, will always be in opposition and will always spur new arguments. That's not disruptive or distracting - it's natural.
i am still kinda exhausted from the last thread when people had to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, with statistics from reputable journals, that sexism was a bad thing, that it caused bad things, that sexy women were meant to be sexy even if they didn't cater to all hetero male tastes, that buff men were not intended to be sexy to women, etc. etc. etc. over and over and again and again. the idea of not doing battle with every clueless sexist who wanders in can appeal to me too sometimes
I find the people saying a picture like that should not be drawn a little more troublesome than the artist who drew the picture.
The artist is saying "Hey, here's what I like! <presents something grotesque and absurd>"
The people saying he shouldn't have drawn it are saying "No one should draw things that I don't like! Anyone who does is an evil sexist racist!"
I don't care if they say it's not good art, that's fine (even correct!), but moving on to say 'it should never have been drawn/not allowed to have been drawn/artist should feel terrible and be shamed' is going too far IMO. If you find it offensive, that's fine. It's perfectly OK to be offended by bad art. I'd also say it's perfectly OK to make art that offends people. Even art that is objectively bad. And of course, saying "It's ART it's not FOR you" is not a magical shield against criticism. I also think the way that art has basically devolved to 'whatever shocks or offends people or breaks taboos' makes this discussion a lot harder to have. If you assume that art is that which shocks and offends (as so many do) then surely anything that shocks and offends is art and therefore beyond the bounds of criticism! All the trends lately in modern art have been making things that offend people and then laughing at the suggestions that we use social pressure to convince people to make good art and not make bad art, because good art is that which makes people uncomfortable!
I think the real issue, as many have said, is if NOTHING BUT pictures like the above are portrayed, that is definitely a problem and I think this is where the real discussion is. I don't think anyone is suggesting we censor art. I think people are pointing out that if every representation of an attractive female is of this type, that's a problem. It's doubly a problem if it's an absurd over exaggerated type that no physical woman falls into (but it would be a problem even if the single type portrayed as attractive was that which the 'majority' of women actually looked like, though that would be an improvement on what we have). I whole-heartedly agree with the body image criticisms. However, the horrifically airbrushed/photoshopped magazines/ads you see you the checkout lane are a much bigger problem, as they at least pretend to portray real women. But no one looks like that. No one looks like that picture either, but it's obviously an absurd caricature. I feel that would be a more productive avenue for society to express its concerns about how things like that warp and corrupt the idea of female body image. However, this is a gaming thread.
I agree we could use more 'non stereotypical' portrayals of females in games. And we should encourage that. Typically games that have done so (Half Life, Portal) have been praised for doing so. I'd like to see more of that. I think encouragement and positive reinforcement are the way to go.
I think a lot of people view it as through a rather simplified prism of 'attractive woman in game means all women are being objectified for the pleasure of men!' which is leaving out a lot of variables and sexual/gender orientations. You'd be surprised how many women do not have problems with those characters. At the same time, I have no problem with the concept of games making male characters that females/males would be attracted to, but mostly I think they miss the mark and churn out male characters that they think their male players would like to imagine themselves as (and then miss the mark there too). We could use more diverse portrayals of male/female characters in general, honestly. I don't think there's anything wrong with that witch picture. (it's not 'art' obviously). The problem is if every portrayal is like that.
I also think it wouldn't hurt to guys as a whole to give more push back on 'listen, we find reasonable and realistically proportioned females the most attractive. Stop showing us so many absurdly thin models who obviously are having health issues, and stop showing us so many characters that are impossibly exaggerated. We don't like it. It doesn't make us more likely to buy your stuff'
On the whole I think game designers don't really get what men actually find attractive visually in women and other men or women find actually attractive visually in men or other women. It's kind of like how movie makers make the movies they THINK we want to watch but actually they are terrible and boring. It's not that it's bad to churn out a movie aimed at 18 year old males with gun fights, explosions, and car chases sprinkled with drugs and alcohol and ex, but when every movie is like that, it's dreary and dull.
In such cases I think it's probably more effective to praise/promote positive examples than attack negative examples (of course the very worst can be made examples of) but if you go after just a typical representation of the genre, they can plausibly claim "why are you going after me? There are tons and tons of similar things out there. This is just a personal vendetta". Seeing people advocating going up to the artist and telling them they are horrible human beings makes me feel very concerned. I don' think personally attacking/demeaning other human beings is the way to go and (perhaps more importantly?) I would imagine the artist is just drawing what they were told to draw. Some of these drawings were made by female artists. Some don't mind because they like that look, some do mind but are more or less forced to by the higher ups or because they think this is the only look that male games would be interested in.
In neither latter case is attacking the artist appropriate or productive to enacting meaningful change .
Of course...this is really just scratching the surface because I would argue that characters are, besides being portrayed badly visually, are portrayed very badly in terms of their character and intelligence. In this at least, we seem to have obtained a bit more parity in that both male and female characters are generally portrayed as uninteresting, boring, uneducated, unintelligent, vapid, idiots. This tends to exacerbate the physical portrayal problem because the stereotype is 'women are just there for their looks!' and if your female character looks absurdly exaggeratedly attractive and is dumb as rocks, you're wrong twice: you're reinforcing two bad stereotypes. A physically exaggerated male character who is as dumb is rocks usually gets a pass for both criteria, despite being exactly as 'bad' because usually the physical exaggerations are taken to be how guys would like to see themselves (which in many cases is wrong) and there's not really the 'the guy is just there for his looks' stereotype.
So I think part of the problem is that they turn out attractive characters who are mentally negligible, and this is more of a problem for female characters than male characters. So it's at least partly (in fact, probably mostly) incompetence rather than institutionalized sexism. Not that that's much of a defense.
I just feel like we're in danger of the argument morphing from "We shouldn't uphold this as the only standard of female attractiveness" to "no one should find that attractive if they do they are terrible". Anyone taking the latter position is simply wrong.
There weren't video game witches like that in Victorian times and yet that was a much much more sexist society than today. In fact I'd say today is the least sexist our society has ever been. It's also I think the time during which we have the most saturation of that exaggerated portrayal (much of which I blame on Japan, where such a thing isn't remotely considered to be problematic). So I wouldn't say there's any correlation between video game characters and a sexist society.
I think there's a lot more evidence for the body image critique. And the problem there is the general lack of diversity and consistent hammering of a single type, not any particular specific portrayal.
Do people think criticize means insult? Is that the hang-up? Because that would explain a lot.
Also, I, just like you, have every right to insult an artist I don't like. I usually don't jump right to that, but the right, morally and legally, very much exists.
Possibly. I know when explaining critical reviews in the classroom, many students seem to think a critical review should be all attack. "criticism" does seem to be synonymous with being angry, hurtful, and insulting.
Also, it's pretty common for people to tie art with the artist. Like, if I'm being critical of a piece of art I'm also being critical, personally, about the artist. However, that's hardly ever the case, but that separation is a big leap.
I mean, I'm sure we have all been reviewed about something we've created in our lives, and even if it's meant to be constructive criticism, the process still feels like a part of ourselves is under the hammer, so to speak.
Incidentally, its entirely possible that Dragon's Crown may well sell more copies now than before the controversy blew up. I'm not planning on buying it, but I hadn't even heard of it before the debate over the sorceress started. Just a thought.
I find the people saying a picture like that should not be drawn a little more troublesome than the artist who drew the picture.
The artist is saying "Hey, here's what I like! <presents something grotesque and absurd>"
The people saying he shouldn't have drawn it are saying "No one should draw things that I don't like! Anyone who does is an evil sexist racist!"
dribble
I didn't read this post because after the first 3 lines I realized you haven't read anyone else's posts.
I'm not sure where to place games like Bayonetta or Infinite or Tomb Raider in helping/hurting this cause.
I thought Bayonetta was breathtakingly offensive and sexist and my face was practically turning red. As I'm about to turn it off, in walks a female. "Ha, this is great!" she says. I still couldn't bring myself to finish it as I just felt uncomfortable the whole time. I would have held it up from my own personal experience as one of the worst examples, but apparently it's regarded by all the serious critics (and many females!) as very cutting edge and empowering and not sexist. So...I dunno.
Lara Croft is at least not mentally useless but I think she fits into the category of 'strong women that men like' rather than 'strong women that women like'. Although..is she? Is there overlap? If you belong to the former group can you 'count' as helping the situation? Does it even make sense to emphasize appearance as something that appeals to female gamers as heavily? After all, men are much more visual. On the other hand women generally are tested as being more critical of other women's appearance than are men.
Elizabeth in infinite is at least not absurdly oversexualized.
Bayonetta strides on a very important line in that cogent arguments can be made about it both ways. Sexist or not sexist, it's important in that it has spawned a lot of discussion about portrayals of power, femininity, and essential femininity in games. Whether or not Bayonetta is a positive force in a vacuum, that discussion can only be a good thing.
Also what the Hell happened in here, why are you guys arguing about censorship
I find the people saying a picture like that should not be drawn a little more troublesome than the artist who drew the picture.
The artist is saying "Hey, here's what I like! <presents something grotesque and absurd>"
The people saying he shouldn't have drawn it are saying "No one should draw things that I don't like! Anyone who does is an evil sexist racist!"
dribble
I didn't read this post because after the first 3 lines I realized you haven't read anyone else's posts.
Pretty much.
No one has said that.
Again and again people come in here and make arguments against nonexistent statements.
I don't care what art critics say, or anyone for that matter, if they don't like the art that's fine, I don't like it myself because overall it all looks pretty ridiculous to me. But that STILL does not justify engaging into personal attacks against someone you don't know because he drew something you don't like. Yes, I think personal attacks are out of line and an overreaction in this particular case. And I'm not going to turn this into a long-drawn argument because it's not going to get us anywhere. You think it's fine and dandy to insult people over things like this, I think you have no right, and that's that.
What personal attacks are you talking about? Please provide quotes.
If you have legal authority, you should probably stay away from legislating censorship. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Listen, your art is terrible and actually contributing to a harmful part of society. If you can't get better about that then maybe you should check into like, a waiting job," if you don't have that authority.
And then that person is free to walk away from me. And I can say, "No, really, you're fucking awful," as they leave.
That's advocating a personal attack against the artist any way you look at it.
I find the people saying a picture like that should not be drawn a little more troublesome than the artist who drew the picture.
The artist is saying "Hey, here's what I like! <presents something grotesque and absurd>"
The people saying he shouldn't have drawn it are saying "No one should draw things that I don't like! Anyone who does is an evil sexist racist!"
dribble
I didn't read this post because after the first 3 lines I realized you haven't read anyone else's posts.
Pretty much.
No one has said that.
Again and again people come in here and make arguments against nonexistent statements.
if forced to choose between putting a censor on sexist/racist/etc. art and not doing that, i'd put it on. now we don't have the poisonous sewer flowing directly into our water supply, so i'm not too broken up about the filter preventing some of the diamonds getting through
"I don't like this thing and i'm not going to purchase it. I don't think other people should purchase it either" is a thing I think and say regularly about many many things.
I didn't realize I was creating such a toxic censorship environment.
I don't care what art critics say, or anyone for that matter, if they don't like the art that's fine, I don't like it myself because overall it all looks pretty ridiculous to me. But that STILL does not justify engaging into personal attacks against someone you don't know because he drew something you don't like. Yes, I think personal attacks are out of line and an overreaction in this particular case. And I'm not going to turn this into a long-drawn argument because it's not going to get us anywhere. You think it's fine and dandy to insult people over things like this, I think you have no right, and that's that.
What personal attacks are you talking about? Please provide quotes.
If you have legal authority, you should probably stay away from legislating censorship. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Listen, your art is terrible and actually contributing to a harmful part of society. If you can't get better about that then maybe you should check into like, a waiting job," if you don't have that authority.
And then that person is free to walk away from me. And I can say, "No, really, you're fucking awful," as they leave.
That's advocating a personal attack against the artist any way you look at it.
the idea of not doing battle with every clueless sexist who wanders in can appeal to me too sometimes
There's personal insults aimed at anyone who disagrees with Nuzak, apparently.
Talking about a product isn't like talking about a person though, saying "this shit sucks so fucking bad" is just hyperbole. Ultimately it doesn't really mean anything other than "I strongly dislike this".
I posted this in the other thread but screw it I'm gonna post it again, a collection of some of my favourite artistic put-downs (all from professional reviewers):
I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.
It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards
This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
Guy Feiri, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?
Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?"
In Ireland they try to make a cat clean by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject.
"Guys, I don't know what to tell you. I think you need to do some ballads. The crowd wants to hear some ballads. You got anything that sounds like Oasis, The Wallflowers, Bon Jovi?"
"Fuck you, man, we have songs that sound exactly like those guys. These kids won't know the difference. Awright, motherfuckers, let's get out there and melt some hearts. Hello again, Americans! Do you like insipid love songs that sound like wedding band covers? Get ready for five of them!"
"Jet! You guys are covered in shit! What's going on out there?"
"They threw their shit at us!"
How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors –(Graham's Lady Magazine review of Wuthering Heights, 1848)
[/quote]
Jeedan on
+3
kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
I love how that picture is "arguably" cheesecake because she is "pretty fugly." That picture is two feet of clothing away from being pornography. And I love the idea that people who got bent out of shape about it were "more of self-appointed media watchdogs" than "civilized critics." Show that shit to a legitimate art critic. See how long it takes them to stop laughing - at least, those who don't just immediately ignore it as the work of a juvenile mind.
Yes, it's bad art. The critique here isn't that it's bad art, the critique is that it perpetuates certain ideas about gender, and is bad for people, so people shouldn't do it any more. Three discrete threads of critique here:
(1) A narrow view of censorship as some state-imposed rule prohibiting the publication of something. Everybody, except for @Nuzak, is against this.
(2) Critique of the work as bad aesthetically. Nobody thinks this is going to "silence" an artist - see Thomas Kincaid, Uwe Boll, etc. This is what you claim you are doing and, tellingly, it is the position you take in response to claims people are advocating censorship.
(3) Critique of the work as bad morally, or for the health of the consumer. This critique says: this work hurts people. If the implication of that isn't "stop doing the work, and society should shun you if you don't." If that isn't silencing, I don't know what is.
Some examples:
(a) This contemporaneous far-right/libertarian defense of Hollywood blacklisting: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/blist.htm ("The blacklisting of pro-Communist screenwriters, actors, and so on was particularly appropriate as an act of cultural self-defense. I daresay that if Hollywood had been largely pro-Nazi, World War II would have sparked a massive wave of firing of not only American Nazi Party members, but anyone vaguely sympathetic to their views. And what would have been wrong with that? They still have the right to express their views, just not on the payroll of people who deplore them. ")
(b) A gallery cancelled a Mapplethorpe show because "of the possible offensive nature of some of the photographs" and "concern that the controversial nature of the exhibition would cause the museum to become part of a political controversy over Federal financing of artistic work that many might find offensive." http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/01/arts/crowd-at-corcoran-protests-mapplethorpe-cancellation.html
To be clear, you as a free individual, have every right to argue that games like this shouldn't be made, and if they are made, they shouldn't be bought, and the people that make these games are bad and they shouldn't be employed unless they change their art/speech. You can use your market power as a consumer to do that, just as employers did in (a) and the general public did in (b). But to pretend that the critique isn't intended to (a) get them to either repent or to shut up, (b) that you wouldn't be happier if games like this were never made again, and (c) that regardless of your intent, the critique will have a small but real silencing effect, is incredibly disingenous.
I don't care if they say it's not good art, that's fine (even correct!), but moving on to say 'it should never have been drawn/not allowed to have been drawn/artist should feel terrible and be shamed' is going too far IMO.
Do you think someone should be a skinhead?
Do you think someone should say the things a skinhead does?
Do you think someone should write the things a skinhead does?
Do you think someone should draw the things a skinhead does?
Which one is too far? What is the difference between saying someone shouldn't believe a thing and that they shouldn't say a thing? Whither the moral trespass? Everyone is happy to defend the skinhead's right to do a thing, without question, but if you think it's important to say only "that's not a very nice picture of a Jewish person" instead of "you shouldn't do crap like that," I vehemently disagree.
I think the real issue, as many have said, is if NOTHING BUT pictures like the above are portrayed, that is definitely a problem and I think this is where the real discussion is.
That's what people have been talking about as much as they can when people aren't microscoping in on inane debates about censorship. This might be your first venture in the thread but there's a recurring motif of a mosaic representing the bigger picture comprised of little pictures. Each little picture or pixel is innocent in itself—it's just a thing! But the underlying ideas that lead to those pictures comprising the big picture they do is the issue, and so to some extent that problem exists in each of them.
You'd be surprised how many women do not have problems with those characters.
I don't think anyone here would be surprised.
In such cases I think it's probably more effective to praise/promote positive examples than attack negative examples (of course the very worst can be made examples of) but if you go after just a typical representation of the genre, they can plausibly claim "why are you going after me? There are tons and tons of similar things out there. This is just a personal vendetta". Seeing people advocating going up to the artist and telling them they are horrible human beings makes me feel very concerned.
I think it's important to be able to reasonably interpret what people mean. No one is advocating that people look up an artist's address and find him in public one day and call him a shithead. Those responses are whether you can tell a creator that their work is bad or not, for any reason. Free of value judgments, everyone has the right to say whatever they please to someone. (Please do not talk about yelling fire in a theater or making sustained death threats and harassment, because I'm talking about the 99% of human discourse and not the bleeding edge. Normally I wouldn't feel it necessary to add a proviso like this but lately interpretation seems to be a problem.) Crazy evangelicals can tell Ang Lee that showing gay people sympathetically is horrible and he's going to hell, and they have every right to say that! (I would also say they shouldn't say that, but apparently that would be censorship). Everyone else also has the right to call those people assholes, because that's how free speech works: everyone gets it.
I just feel like we're in danger of the argument morphing from "We shouldn't uphold this as the only standard of female attractiveness" to "no one should find that attractive if they do they are terrible". Anyone taking the latter position is simply wrong.
Can you find me someone seriously espousing the latter, and maybe @ them and ask if that's what they mean? Because this is the third thread along these lines I've been in with largely the same mainstays and I've seen perhaps a billion weary explanations that no one cares what people find attractive or wants to suppress anyone's sexuality or personal interests. We just don't want to see the same thing over and over and over and over and over again because it contributes to a message bigger than the sum of its components, an idea you seem to accept.
There weren't video game witches like that in Victorian times and yet that was a much much more sexist society than today. In fact I'd say today is the least sexist our society has ever been. It's also I think the time during which we have the most saturation of that exaggerated portrayal (much of which I blame on Japan, where such a thing isn't remotely considered to be problematic). So I wouldn't say there's any correlation between video game characters and a sexist society.
The country was also much more racist in the 1800s than it is today. Videogames probably didn't have anything to do with that, either. Magazines actually did exist in the Victorian era, but that doesn't mean magazines today aren't rife with sexism despite society being less sexist. I'm not sure what power you think people are ascribing to videogames but I expect it's mistaken.
I think there's a lot more evidence for the body image critique. And the problem there is the general lack of diversity and consistent hammering of a single type, not any particular specific portrayal.
The reason there's a body image problem in the first place is because there's a relentlessly reinforced (and evolving) cultural notion of what constitutes beauty. Yes, it's in beauty mags. Yes, it's in Hollywood. Yes, it's in cosmetics commercials. Yes, it's in videogames. Videogames is where the focus of this thread is for obvious reasons, but the thing behind all those instances isn't just a coincidence of repetition.
"I don't like this thing and i'm not going to purchase it. I don't think other people should purchase it either" is a thing I think and say regularly about many many things.
I didn't realize I was creating such a toxic censorship environment.
Don't try to move the goalposts by substituting something more reasonable for what I am actually addressing. You're accusing me of addressing something people didn't say by claiming I said something I didn't! The circle is now complete. Probably would have helped you to read the whole post. But then, there is quite a bit of not reading going on. Someone will say X and then three posts later someone else will claim "NO ONE is saying X!"
TychoCelchuuu, Nuzak, and ErikTheViking are offended/upset/distreessed at the very existence of this picture. Nuzak said he'd like to censor such racist/sexist 'art'*. And that anyone who disagrees it's sexist art is obviously a clueless sexist himself!
That's what I'm addressing. I find that viewpoint to be more distressing than any individual objectionable piece of art.
If you don't like it and aren't planning to purchase it, well, that's my own stance. As I pointed out in my post, we need to reward games that cut against this trend (portal, half-life) with sales and good reviews and not encourage ones that reinforce damaging stereotypes.
*as I explained in my post, I don't think it's 'art'. And even if it was, that doesn't shield it from criticism.
(2) Critique of the work as bad aesthetically. Nobody thinks this is going to "silence" an artist - see Thomas Kincaid, Uwe Boll, etc. This is what you claim you are doing and, tellingly, it is the position you take in response to claims people are advocating censorship.
(3) Critique of the work as bad morally, or for the health of the consumer. This critique says: this work hurts people. If the implication of that isn't "stop doing the work, and society should shun you if you don't." If that isn't silencing, I don't know what is.
How in the world do you imagine that telling someone their art is bad is not telling them that they should stop doing that kind of art?
There is no difference between these two except the provided reason. There is no force, no exertion, there is nothing but an opinion on the value of the work.
I don't care what art critics say, or anyone for that matter, if they don't like the art that's fine, I don't like it myself because overall it all looks pretty ridiculous to me. But that STILL does not justify engaging into personal attacks against someone you don't know because he drew something you don't like. Yes, I think personal attacks are out of line and an overreaction in this particular case. And I'm not going to turn this into a long-drawn argument because it's not going to get us anywhere. You think it's fine and dandy to insult people over things like this, I think you have no right, and that's that.
What personal attacks are you talking about? Please provide quotes.
If you have legal authority, you should probably stay away from legislating censorship. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Listen, your art is terrible and actually contributing to a harmful part of society. If you can't get better about that then maybe you should check into like, a waiting job," if you don't have that authority.
And then that person is free to walk away from me. And I can say, "No, really, you're fucking awful," as they leave.
That's advocating a personal attack against the artist any way you look at it.
the idea of not doing battle with every clueless sexist who wanders in can appeal to me too sometimes
There's personal insults aimed at anyone who disagrees with Nuzak, apparently.
So the best examples you can find are of someone talking about insulting an imaginary artist, and someone saying that they're fed up with clueless sexists without actually identifying any particular person as a sexist.
If we take "personal attacks" to mean "statements that ascribe certain negative characteristics to a specific person (or group of people)", then neither of those are personal attacks.
I love how that picture is "arguably" cheesecake because she is "pretty fugly." That picture is two feet of clothing away from being pornography. And I love the idea that people who got bent out of shape about it were "more of self-appointed media watchdogs" than "civilized critics." Show that shit to a legitimate art critic. See how long it takes them to stop laughing - at least, those who don't just immediately ignore it as the work of a juvenile mind.
Yes, it's bad art. The critique here isn't that it's bad art, the critique is that it perpetuates certain ideas about gender, and is bad for people, so people shouldn't do it any more. Three discrete threads of critique here:
(1) A narrow view of censorship as some state-imposed rule prohibiting the publication of something. Everybody, except for @Nuzak, is against this.
(2) Critique of the work as bad aesthetically. Nobody thinks this is going to "silence" an artist - see Thomas Kincaid, Uwe Boll, etc. This is what you claim you are doing and, tellingly, it is the position you take in response to claims people are advocating censorship.
(3) Critique of the work as bad morally, or for the health of the consumer. This critique says: this work hurts people. If the implication of that isn't "stop doing the work, and society should shun you if you don't." If that isn't silencing, I don't know what is.
Some examples:
(a) This contemporaneous far-right/libertarian defense of Hollywood blacklisting: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/blist.htm ("The blacklisting of pro-Communist screenwriters, actors, and so on was particularly appropriate as an act of cultural self-defense. I daresay that if Hollywood had been largely pro-Nazi, World War II would have sparked a massive wave of firing of not only American Nazi Party members, but anyone vaguely sympathetic to their views. And what would have been wrong with that? They still have the right to express their views, just not on the payroll of people who deplore them. ")
(b) A gallery cancelled a Mapplethorpe show because "of the possible offensive nature of some of the photographs" and "concern that the controversial nature of the exhibition would cause the museum to become part of a political controversy over Federal financing of artistic work that many might find offensive." http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/01/arts/crowd-at-corcoran-protests-mapplethorpe-cancellation.html
To be clear, you as a free individual, have every right to argue that games like this shouldn't be made, and if they are made, they shouldn't be bought, and the people that make these games are bad and they shouldn't be employed unless they change their art/speech. You can use your market power as a consumer to do that, just as employers did in (a) and the general public did in (b). But to pretend that the critique isn't intended to (a) get them to either repent or to shut up, (b) that you wouldn't be happier if games like this were never made again, and (c) that regardless of your intent, the critique will have a small but real silencing effect, is incredibly disingenous.
The point is that society is based on guiding the behavior of others. The idea that talking about why a bad thing is bad should merit a mention alongside censorship is ludicrous. Persuading people is the softest possible form of influence.
Nobody denies we want things to change. We do deny that there's anything wrong with saying that out loud, which seems to be the problem here. Nobody is making threats. There is no violence. No threateninng atmosphere. The only danger is embarrassment, but god fucking forbid, right?
Edit: If you are legitimately comparing this to Mapplethorpe I'm just going to go ahead and put my head in the toaster.
I come from separate likes for history, anatomy/physiology and female warriors. I have studied the two former while the latter by warrior I mean any sort of female fighter doing physical or non-physical battle. Of course females have been present through history and fought alongside the men no matter what some people will try to tell you. And the way a warrior dresses, and the way a warrior is built no matter what gender they choose to be is relevant to my interests. Enough about me and my interests. I'm going to drop a few thoughts that are very loosely connected if at all.
The first simple thing that people can't get through their head, some basic shit really, is that the person who is the "underdog" (I'm sure there's a better word) in a conflict decides what is derogative or violating. Example: "I didn't mean any harm by drawing focus from her role as a professional and push her into the female role. It was meant as a compliment. Therefor I wasn't sexist." The person you speak to decides based upon how they feel if what you said was sexist/racist or what have you. Not you. Never. Get that basic thing and we can move on.
I would totally play a game with these guys in:
I am an avid miniature painter and recently got this comment from a ten year old girl while we were looking at miniatures: "That one has a robe so you can decide for yourself if it's a man or a woman." This is in no way a unique view of gender, but rather pretty common among children if they are allowed it and not force-fed pink and ponies for girls and cars and war for boys. Eventually they decide what gender they are. You're gonna scratch your heads at this one, I bet. But it's too large of a subject that doesn't really fit into this thread's subject and would take me too long to explain so either take it or leave it.
Expanding on miniatures however is within the scope of this thread since it's now about "the gaming industry" as a whole which I like a lot. Although chain-mail bikini clad warriors are fewer in-between nowadays they still pop up every now and then, but it's moving in the right direction. However you still see armoured, female warriors with "shell traps" between their tits which annoys me to no end, much like helmets with horns. "Yeah please make me some armour that will not deflect the blow, but rather catch the weapon and focus the force of the blow against one spot, prefferably somewhere on my body that is likely to kill me, like my head or heart."
Since I found the previous thread and read it I've learned a lot and still am. I have decided to use what I've learned to continue to (because I believe it's a longer process and not done overnight) to raise my own awareness and others. I also direct people to those who are more knowledgable and can put it better in words. I find it very hopeful that there seems to be something bigger brewing, a revolution of sorts, and that it's taking place all over the western world simultaneously.
Nobody mentioned these women yet. It's been a while since I played left 4 dead so there might have been some bad dialog that I don't remember, but overall they're pretty bad ass in the pictures here, and one out of four characters is not bad. It's better than zero, although still fewer than 50%:
So today I realized I completely forgot about Mirror's Edge. My gf's daughter is ten and has a PS3. I went to town and scourged it until I found the last copy, used and at a discount. At one of the stores where I asked for the game and I said the game was for a young girl and I ranted a bit about how there could be more games made geared towards girls/women and I would still swim in games "for me", the guy behind the counter told me of a game that I have not yet seen anyone mention in this or the previous thread. I'm cautiously optimistic, and at least hopeful about it, and will definately check it out and potentially even buy it just to support the company, depending on how it turns out. The game is called "Remember me". Here are two links that are relevant to this thread's subject:
Last but not least I would like to say that it's stupid (to put it mildly) of the marketing firms and publishers to yap about how games featuring strong female non-sexualized leads won't make money. They can't possibly know that because they have as of today not made any such games. As we all know even the "strong" female characters are either sexualized or victimized in almost all games to date.
Well, I'll get back to reading. Thanks everyone for typing.
finnpalm on
+8
kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
(2) Critique of the work as bad aesthetically. Nobody thinks this is going to "silence" an artist - see Thomas Kincaid, Uwe Boll, etc. This is what you claim you are doing and, tellingly, it is the position you take in response to claims people are advocating censorship.
(3) Critique of the work as bad morally, or for the health of the consumer. This critique says: this work hurts people. If the implication of that isn't "stop doing the work, and society should shun you if you don't." If that isn't silencing, I don't know what is.
How in the world do you imagine that telling someone their art is bad is not telling them that they should stop doing that kind of art?
There is no difference between these two except the provided reason. There is no force, no exertion, there is nothing but an opinion on the value of the work.
An aesthetic critique says "I don't like that art. I think it is objectively bad for these reasons." Ultimately, people are free to make their own conclusions, and no moral issues are raised by the work.
I don't care what art critics say, or anyone for that matter, if they don't like the art that's fine, I don't like it myself because overall it all looks pretty ridiculous to me. But that STILL does not justify engaging into personal attacks against someone you don't know because he drew something you don't like. Yes, I think personal attacks are out of line and an overreaction in this particular case. And I'm not going to turn this into a long-drawn argument because it's not going to get us anywhere. You think it's fine and dandy to insult people over things like this, I think you have no right, and that's that.
What personal attacks are you talking about? Please provide quotes.
If you have legal authority, you should probably stay away from legislating censorship. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Listen, your art is terrible and actually contributing to a harmful part of society. If you can't get better about that then maybe you should check into like, a waiting job," if you don't have that authority.
And then that person is free to walk away from me. And I can say, "No, really, you're fucking awful," as they leave.
That's advocating a personal attack against the artist any way you look at it.
the idea of not doing battle with every clueless sexist who wanders in can appeal to me too sometimes
There's personal insults aimed at anyone who disagrees with Nuzak, apparently.
Talking about a product isn't like talking about a person though, saying "this shit sucks so fucking bad" is just hyperbole. Ultimately it doesn't really mean anything other than "I strongly dislike this".
I posted this in the other thread but screw it I'm gonna post it again, a collection of some of my favourite artistic put-downs (all from professional reviewers):
I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.
It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards
This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
Guy Feiri, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?
Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?"
In Ireland they try to make a cat clean by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject.
"Guys, I don't know what to tell you. I think you need to do some ballads. The crowd wants to hear some ballads. You got anything that sounds like Oasis, The Wallflowers, Bon Jovi?"
"Fuck you, man, we have songs that sound exactly like those guys. These kids won't know the difference. Awright, motherfuckers, let's get out there and melt some hearts. Hello again, Americans! Do you like insipid love songs that sound like wedding band covers? Get ready for five of them!"
"Jet! You guys are covered in shit! What's going on out there?"
"They threw their shit at us!"
How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors –(Graham's Lady Magazine review of Wuthering Heights, 1848)
[/quote]
eh, I'd say there's a difference between professional critics who are trying to write a critique in order to sell whatever newspaper/column/blog they publish on, and critiquing an aspect that you find morally reprehensible and legitimately want changed in the future. Those authors are trying to be funny or entertaining in order to get people to read what they write. Ultimately I'd say that's not truly persuasive to whomever you're critiquing.
I like making fun of bad art/movies/music as much as the next person, but that's only valuable if you know you can't change how the person will do it in the future (see Nickleback, or Uwe Boll movies). If you're really trying to change someone's views on something important, such as the subject matter of this thread, insults tend to make people defensive and less likely to be persuaded.
I love how that picture is "arguably" cheesecake because she is "pretty fugly." That picture is two feet of clothing away from being pornography. And I love the idea that people who got bent out of shape about it were "more of self-appointed media watchdogs" than "civilized critics." Show that shit to a legitimate art critic. See how long it takes them to stop laughing - at least, those who don't just immediately ignore it as the work of a juvenile mind.
Yes, it's bad art. The critique here isn't that it's bad art, the critique is that it perpetuates certain ideas about gender, and is bad for people, so people shouldn't do it any more. Three discrete threads of critique here:
(1) A narrow view of censorship as some state-imposed rule prohibiting the publication of something. Everybody, except for @Nuzak, is against this.
(2) Critique of the work as bad aesthetically. Nobody thinks this is going to "silence" an artist - see Thomas Kincaid, Uwe Boll, etc. This is what you claim you are doing and, tellingly, it is the position you take in response to claims people are advocating censorship.
(3) Critique of the work as bad morally, or for the health of the consumer. This critique says: this work hurts people. If the implication of that isn't "stop doing the work, and society should shun you if you don't." If that isn't silencing, I don't know what is.
Some examples:
(a) This contemporaneous far-right/libertarian defense of Hollywood blacklisting: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/blist.htm ("The blacklisting of pro-Communist screenwriters, actors, and so on was particularly appropriate as an act of cultural self-defense. I daresay that if Hollywood had been largely pro-Nazi, World War II would have sparked a massive wave of firing of not only American Nazi Party members, but anyone vaguely sympathetic to their views. And what would have been wrong with that? They still have the right to express their views, just not on the payroll of people who deplore them. ")
(b) A gallery cancelled a Mapplethorpe show because "of the possible offensive nature of some of the photographs" and "concern that the controversial nature of the exhibition would cause the museum to become part of a political controversy over Federal financing of artistic work that many might find offensive." http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/01/arts/crowd-at-corcoran-protests-mapplethorpe-cancellation.html
To be clear, you as a free individual, have every right to argue that games like this shouldn't be made, and if they are made, they shouldn't be bought, and the people that make these games are bad and they shouldn't be employed unless they change their art/speech. You can use your market power as a consumer to do that, just as employers did in (a) and the general public did in (b). But to pretend that the critique isn't intended to (a) get them to either repent or to shut up, (b) that you wouldn't be happier if games like this were never made again, and (c) that regardless of your intent, the critique will have a small but real silencing effect, is incredibly disingenous.
The point is that society is based on guiding the behavior of others. The idea that talking about why a bad thing is bad should merit a mention alongside censorship is ludicrous. Persuading people is the softest possible form of influence.
Nobody denies we want things to change. We do deny that there's anything wrong with saying that out loud, which seems to be the problem here. Nobody is making threats. There is no violence. No threateninng atmosphere. The only danger is embarrassment, but god fucking forbid, right?
Edit: If you are legitimately comparing this to Mapplethorpe I'm just going to go ahead and put my head in the toaster.
I am not impressed with Dragon Crown's art here, but I'm of the opinion that society shouldn't get to determine what gets published and consumed, because one man's mapplethorpe is another man's bayonetta. Anyway, I agree with you mostly - the problem isn't in the criticism, but it's in people like Tycho pretending that their criticism isn't meant to have a silencing effect.
I tend to defend the challenged works here, not because I like them or intend to ingest them, but because I think they are within the bounds of what civilized society should allow and if people want to enjoy them, that's what a health free society must permit.
eh, I'd say there's a difference between professional critics who are trying to write a critique in order to sell whatever newspaper/column/blog they publish on, and critiquing an aspect that you find morally reprehensible and legitimately want changed in the future. Those authors are trying to be funny or entertaining in order to get people to read what they write. Ultimately I'd say that's not truly persuasive to whomever you're critiquing.
I like making fun of bad art/movies/music as much as the next person, but that's only valuable if you know you can't change how the person will do it in the future (see Nickleback, or Uwe Boll movies). If you're really trying to change someone's views on something important, such as the subject matter of this thread, insults tend to make people defensive and less likely to be persuaded.
Not everyone is doing that all the time though, sometimes you might just want to say "fuck, I hate this thing", especially on a forum post where the inclination is to go hard for the purposes of rhetoric.
If I was talking directly to the artist, yeah, I might be more careful. But no one should have to tip toe around all the time in case the artist happens to be reading the penny arcade forums right now and you hurt their feelings.
"I don't like this thing and i'm not going to purchase it. I don't think other people should purchase it either" is a thing I think and say regularly about many many things.
I didn't realize I was creating such a toxic censorship environment.
Don't try to move the goalposts by substituting something more reasonable for what I am actually addressing. You're accusing me of addressing something people didn't say by claiming I said something I didn't! The circle is now complete. Probably would have helped you to read the whole post. But then, there is quite a bit of not reading going on. Someone will say X and then three posts later someone else will claim "NO ONE is saying X!"
TychoCelchuuu, Nuzak, and ErikTheViking are offended/upset/distreessed at the very existence of this picture. Nuzak said he'd like to censor such racist/sexist 'art'*. And that anyone who disagrees it's sexist art is obviously a clueless sexist himself!
That's what I'm addressing. I find that viewpoint to be more distressing than any individual objectionable piece of art.
If you don't like it and aren't planning to purchase it, well, that's my own stance. As I pointed out in my post, we need to reward games that cut against this trend (portal, half-life) with sales and good reviews and not encourage ones that reinforce damaging stereotypes.
*as I explained in my post, I don't think it's 'art'. And even if it was, that doesn't shield it from criticism.
If you want to address something someone is saying, talk to them. Directly to them. Doing this "well some people..." thing just means going round in circles forever.
Posts
She is molesting a skeleton with breasts larger than watermelons while she jams a rod between her butt cheecks. She is twisting mid-torso (impossibly) to show us her tits and her ass. Her nipples are covered in the sense that there is lacy white lingerie over them, but that's only because they are unrealistically far down on her breasts, and she's showing as much leg as she can without wearing a thong. And another character is in a chainmail bikini.
dragons crown has scantily clad women. don't argue the toss. that's cheesecake. he wasn't forced to apologize, he made an ok apology after he recognized that feelings were hurt. which is basic human decency.
and stop implying that the people offended by this are overreacting or being irrational or whatever.
"you're censoring people's freems to say whatever gross, harmful shit they want to say"
"no, i'm not, i'm just using my freem to criticize you"
"well it sounds pretty authoritative, stop censoring" etc.
cards on the table? if forced to choose between putting a censor on sexist/racist/etc. art and not doing that, i'd put it on. now we don't have the poisonous sewer flowing directly into our water supply, so i'm not too broken up about the filter preventing some of the diamonds getting through- let's be honest, it's not like that's even happening right now, there's not a plethora of artists making subversive ironic art that only seems sexist on the surface or whatever.
but hey, since that's not something anyone in this thread has in their power, looks like any talk of censorship is nothing to do with anything. nobody's actually going to censor something, even if they literally call for a censor on it! if you're objecting to criticism because it's too much like censorship, you're objecting to the tone of the argument, not the argument.
Also, I, just like you, have every right to insult an artist I don't like. I usually don't jump right to that, but the right, morally and legally, very much exists.
What personal attacks are you talking about? Please provide quotes.
Or is stating that sexist art is sexist an insult now?
I shall start by calling for people to be censored from criticising artists work.
@dporowski, for an issue that you were "inclined to defend vigorously" because of its dire importance in free society, you pretty quickly fall back on ducking arguments and resorting to empty phrases about "dangerous territory" and vague, unspecified consequence. Please imagine that you are not the only person to grow up in a society that extols free expression in its marrow and that perhaps when people say that "I think..." is not a magic talisman phrase that neutralizes any concept that follows it, they might be right.
@The Wolfman, Prime was great! That was Retro's doing—they shot for a more realistic, respectful depiction. Of course for the sequels word from the brass came down saying they needed to showcase the new zero suit and the design needed to be changed, but for their part Retro did what they could. Their 100% endings even showed cliffhangers for the next game, which is a much more interesting reward.
Super Metroid alone is not an egregious example, it's just part of the trend (e.g., do better = see more), which is why Metroid is brought up in that conversation in the first place. The first game had a leotard and then further a bikini at its highest clears, and her outfit later became whatever showed off her legs and belly best. There's nothing wrong with a helmet expose to show the identity of the intrepid armored protagonist, there isn't a problem inherent to showing her chilling out out of her armor, but when women are relentlessly objectified as an accepted thing rewarding player success with showing more skin is an issue. This is why the zero suit didn't just come out of nowhere—it was part of a trend of Samus's body being a reward.
At what point exactly did people debating an issue turn from thinking "reasonably" to merely "being offended," which—like the politically engineered term "politically correct"—is just a thing people say to express disapproval without having to argue it? As has been mentioned again in the past few pages, no one cares about being offended (picture me fanning my face melodramatically), they care because it's a problem. If you don't think it's a problem then argue the reasons instead of these repeated attempts we've seen to use loaded language like "censorship" or "crusades" or "witch hunt" and then consider the matter won.
That would be being reasonable.
What People Are Allowed to Criticize (aka Censor)
Other peoples' criticism of art (especially important art, like a woman twisting herself so that we get to see her tits and her ass)
Generally bad feminist arguments that lead to the above
Insults that hurt an artist's feelings
What People Are Not Allowed to Criticize (aka Censor)
Art
Pornography this is art
Sexist representations of women that hurt someone's feelings this is art
Samus stripping as players do better so that titillation keeps men playing probably art
Have I got that right?
Origin: RollThatKatamari
Never.
The artist is saying "Hey, here's what I like! <presents something grotesque and absurd>"
The people saying he shouldn't have drawn it are saying "No one should draw things that I don't like! Anyone who does is an evil sexist racist!"
I don't care if they say it's not good art, that's fine (even correct!), but moving on to say 'it should never have been drawn/not allowed to have been drawn/artist should feel terrible and be shamed' is going too far IMO. If you find it offensive, that's fine. It's perfectly OK to be offended by bad art. I'd also say it's perfectly OK to make art that offends people. Even art that is objectively bad. And of course, saying "It's ART it's not FOR you" is not a magical shield against criticism. I also think the way that art has basically devolved to 'whatever shocks or offends people or breaks taboos' makes this discussion a lot harder to have. If you assume that art is that which shocks and offends (as so many do) then surely anything that shocks and offends is art and therefore beyond the bounds of criticism! All the trends lately in modern art have been making things that offend people and then laughing at the suggestions that we use social pressure to convince people to make good art and not make bad art, because good art is that which makes people uncomfortable!
I think the real issue, as many have said, is if NOTHING BUT pictures like the above are portrayed, that is definitely a problem and I think this is where the real discussion is. I don't think anyone is suggesting we censor art. I think people are pointing out that if every representation of an attractive female is of this type, that's a problem. It's doubly a problem if it's an absurd over exaggerated type that no physical woman falls into (but it would be a problem even if the single type portrayed as attractive was that which the 'majority' of women actually looked like, though that would be an improvement on what we have). I whole-heartedly agree with the body image criticisms. However, the horrifically airbrushed/photoshopped magazines/ads you see you the checkout lane are a much bigger problem, as they at least pretend to portray real women. But no one looks like that. No one looks like that picture either, but it's obviously an absurd caricature. I feel that would be a more productive avenue for society to express its concerns about how things like that warp and corrupt the idea of female body image. However, this is a gaming thread.
I agree we could use more 'non stereotypical' portrayals of females in games. And we should encourage that. Typically games that have done so (Half Life, Portal) have been praised for doing so. I'd like to see more of that. I think encouragement and positive reinforcement are the way to go.
I think a lot of people view it as through a rather simplified prism of 'attractive woman in game means all women are being objectified for the pleasure of men!' which is leaving out a lot of variables and sexual/gender orientations. You'd be surprised how many women do not have problems with those characters. At the same time, I have no problem with the concept of games making male characters that females/males would be attracted to, but mostly I think they miss the mark and churn out male characters that they think their male players would like to imagine themselves as (and then miss the mark there too). We could use more diverse portrayals of male/female characters in general, honestly. I don't think there's anything wrong with that witch picture. (it's not 'art' obviously). The problem is if every portrayal is like that.
I also think it wouldn't hurt to guys as a whole to give more push back on 'listen, we find reasonable and realistically proportioned females the most attractive. Stop showing us so many absurdly thin models who obviously are having health issues, and stop showing us so many characters that are impossibly exaggerated. We don't like it. It doesn't make us more likely to buy your stuff'
On the whole I think game designers don't really get what men actually find attractive visually in women and other men or women find actually attractive visually in men or other women. It's kind of like how movie makers make the movies they THINK we want to watch but actually they are terrible and boring. It's not that it's bad to churn out a movie aimed at 18 year old males with gun fights, explosions, and car chases sprinkled with drugs and alcohol and ex, but when every movie is like that, it's dreary and dull.
In such cases I think it's probably more effective to praise/promote positive examples than attack negative examples (of course the very worst can be made examples of) but if you go after just a typical representation of the genre, they can plausibly claim "why are you going after me? There are tons and tons of similar things out there. This is just a personal vendetta". Seeing people advocating going up to the artist and telling them they are horrible human beings makes me feel very concerned. I don' think personally attacking/demeaning other human beings is the way to go and (perhaps more importantly?) I would imagine the artist is just drawing what they were told to draw. Some of these drawings were made by female artists. Some don't mind because they like that look, some do mind but are more or less forced to by the higher ups or because they think this is the only look that male games would be interested in.
In neither latter case is attacking the artist appropriate or productive to enacting meaningful change .
Of course...this is really just scratching the surface because I would argue that characters are, besides being portrayed badly visually, are portrayed very badly in terms of their character and intelligence. In this at least, we seem to have obtained a bit more parity in that both male and female characters are generally portrayed as uninteresting, boring, uneducated, unintelligent, vapid, idiots. This tends to exacerbate the physical portrayal problem because the stereotype is 'women are just there for their looks!' and if your female character looks absurdly exaggeratedly attractive and is dumb as rocks, you're wrong twice: you're reinforcing two bad stereotypes. A physically exaggerated male character who is as dumb is rocks usually gets a pass for both criteria, despite being exactly as 'bad' because usually the physical exaggerations are taken to be how guys would like to see themselves (which in many cases is wrong) and there's not really the 'the guy is just there for his looks' stereotype.
So I think part of the problem is that they turn out attractive characters who are mentally negligible, and this is more of a problem for female characters than male characters. So it's at least partly (in fact, probably mostly) incompetence rather than institutionalized sexism. Not that that's much of a defense.
I just feel like we're in danger of the argument morphing from "We shouldn't uphold this as the only standard of female attractiveness" to "no one should find that attractive if they do they are terrible". Anyone taking the latter position is simply wrong.
There weren't video game witches like that in Victorian times and yet that was a much much more sexist society than today. In fact I'd say today is the least sexist our society has ever been. It's also I think the time during which we have the most saturation of that exaggerated portrayal (much of which I blame on Japan, where such a thing isn't remotely considered to be problematic). So I wouldn't say there's any correlation between video game characters and a sexist society.
I think there's a lot more evidence for the body image critique. And the problem there is the general lack of diversity and consistent hammering of a single type, not any particular specific portrayal.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Possibly. I know when explaining critical reviews in the classroom, many students seem to think a critical review should be all attack. "criticism" does seem to be synonymous with being angry, hurtful, and insulting.
Also, it's pretty common for people to tie art with the artist. Like, if I'm being critical of a piece of art I'm also being critical, personally, about the artist. However, that's hardly ever the case, but that separation is a big leap.
I mean, I'm sure we have all been reviewed about something we've created in our lives, and even if it's meant to be constructive criticism, the process still feels like a part of ourselves is under the hammer, so to speak.
I didn't read this post because after the first 3 lines I realized you haven't read anyone else's posts.
I thought Bayonetta was breathtakingly offensive and sexist and my face was practically turning red. As I'm about to turn it off, in walks a female. "Ha, this is great!" she says. I still couldn't bring myself to finish it as I just felt uncomfortable the whole time. I would have held it up from my own personal experience as one of the worst examples, but apparently it's regarded by all the serious critics (and many females!) as very cutting edge and empowering and not sexist. So...I dunno.
Lara Croft is at least not mentally useless but I think she fits into the category of 'strong women that men like' rather than 'strong women that women like'. Although..is she? Is there overlap? If you belong to the former group can you 'count' as helping the situation? Does it even make sense to emphasize appearance as something that appeals to female gamers as heavily? After all, men are much more visual. On the other hand women generally are tested as being more critical of other women's appearance than are men.
Elizabeth in infinite is at least not absurdly oversexualized.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Also what the Hell happened in here, why are you guys arguing about censorship
Pretty much.
No one has said that.
Again and again people come in here and make arguments against nonexistent statements.
That's advocating a personal attack against the artist any way you look at it.
There's personal insults aimed at anyone who disagrees with Nuzak, apparently.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
That's just on this page.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Way to be the problem, TychoCelchuuu
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I didn't realize I was creating such a toxic censorship environment.
Talking about a product isn't like talking about a person though, saying "this shit sucks so fucking bad" is just hyperbole. Ultimately it doesn't really mean anything other than "I strongly dislike this".
I posted this in the other thread but screw it I'm gonna post it again, a collection of some of my favourite artistic put-downs (all from professional reviewers):
[/quote]
Yes, it's bad art. The critique here isn't that it's bad art, the critique is that it perpetuates certain ideas about gender, and is bad for people, so people shouldn't do it any more. Three discrete threads of critique here:
(1) A narrow view of censorship as some state-imposed rule prohibiting the publication of something. Everybody, except for @Nuzak, is against this.
(2) Critique of the work as bad aesthetically. Nobody thinks this is going to "silence" an artist - see Thomas Kincaid, Uwe Boll, etc. This is what you claim you are doing and, tellingly, it is the position you take in response to claims people are advocating censorship.
(3) Critique of the work as bad morally, or for the health of the consumer. This critique says: this work hurts people. If the implication of that isn't "stop doing the work, and society should shun you if you don't." If that isn't silencing, I don't know what is.
Some examples:
(a) This contemporaneous far-right/libertarian defense of Hollywood blacklisting: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/blist.htm ("The blacklisting of pro-Communist screenwriters, actors, and so on was particularly appropriate as an act of cultural self-defense. I daresay that if Hollywood had been largely pro-Nazi, World War II would have sparked a massive wave of firing of not only American Nazi Party members, but anyone vaguely sympathetic to their views. And what would have been wrong with that? They still have the right to express their views, just not on the payroll of people who deplore them. ")
(b) A gallery cancelled a Mapplethorpe show because "of the possible offensive nature of some of the photographs" and "concern that the controversial nature of the exhibition would cause the museum to become part of a political controversy over Federal financing of artistic work that many might find offensive." http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/01/arts/crowd-at-corcoran-protests-mapplethorpe-cancellation.html
To be clear, you as a free individual, have every right to argue that games like this shouldn't be made, and if they are made, they shouldn't be bought, and the people that make these games are bad and they shouldn't be employed unless they change their art/speech. You can use your market power as a consumer to do that, just as employers did in (a) and the general public did in (b). But to pretend that the critique isn't intended to (a) get them to either repent or to shut up, (b) that you wouldn't be happier if games like this were never made again, and (c) that regardless of your intent, the critique will have a small but real silencing effect, is incredibly disingenous.
Do you think someone should be a skinhead?
Do you think someone should say the things a skinhead does?
Do you think someone should write the things a skinhead does?
Do you think someone should draw the things a skinhead does?
Which one is too far? What is the difference between saying someone shouldn't believe a thing and that they shouldn't say a thing? Whither the moral trespass? Everyone is happy to defend the skinhead's right to do a thing, without question, but if you think it's important to say only "that's not a very nice picture of a Jewish person" instead of "you shouldn't do crap like that," I vehemently disagree.
That's what people have been talking about as much as they can when people aren't microscoping in on inane debates about censorship. This might be your first venture in the thread but there's a recurring motif of a mosaic representing the bigger picture comprised of little pictures. Each little picture or pixel is innocent in itself—it's just a thing! But the underlying ideas that lead to those pictures comprising the big picture they do is the issue, and so to some extent that problem exists in each of them.
I don't think anyone here would be surprised.
I think it's important to be able to reasonably interpret what people mean. No one is advocating that people look up an artist's address and find him in public one day and call him a shithead. Those responses are whether you can tell a creator that their work is bad or not, for any reason. Free of value judgments, everyone has the right to say whatever they please to someone. (Please do not talk about yelling fire in a theater or making sustained death threats and harassment, because I'm talking about the 99% of human discourse and not the bleeding edge. Normally I wouldn't feel it necessary to add a proviso like this but lately interpretation seems to be a problem.) Crazy evangelicals can tell Ang Lee that showing gay people sympathetically is horrible and he's going to hell, and they have every right to say that! (I would also say they shouldn't say that, but apparently that would be censorship). Everyone else also has the right to call those people assholes, because that's how free speech works: everyone gets it.
Can you find me someone seriously espousing the latter, and maybe @ them and ask if that's what they mean? Because this is the third thread along these lines I've been in with largely the same mainstays and I've seen perhaps a billion weary explanations that no one cares what people find attractive or wants to suppress anyone's sexuality or personal interests. We just don't want to see the same thing over and over and over and over and over again because it contributes to a message bigger than the sum of its components, an idea you seem to accept.
The country was also much more racist in the 1800s than it is today. Videogames probably didn't have anything to do with that, either. Magazines actually did exist in the Victorian era, but that doesn't mean magazines today aren't rife with sexism despite society being less sexist. I'm not sure what power you think people are ascribing to videogames but I expect it's mistaken.
The reason there's a body image problem in the first place is because there's a relentlessly reinforced (and evolving) cultural notion of what constitutes beauty. Yes, it's in beauty mags. Yes, it's in Hollywood. Yes, it's in cosmetics commercials. Yes, it's in videogames. Videogames is where the focus of this thread is for obvious reasons, but the thing behind all those instances isn't just a coincidence of repetition.
Don't try to move the goalposts by substituting something more reasonable for what I am actually addressing. You're accusing me of addressing something people didn't say by claiming I said something I didn't! The circle is now complete. Probably would have helped you to read the whole post. But then, there is quite a bit of not reading going on. Someone will say X and then three posts later someone else will claim "NO ONE is saying X!"
TychoCelchuuu, Nuzak, and ErikTheViking are offended/upset/distreessed at the very existence of this picture. Nuzak said he'd like to censor such racist/sexist 'art'*. And that anyone who disagrees it's sexist art is obviously a clueless sexist himself!
That's what I'm addressing. I find that viewpoint to be more distressing than any individual objectionable piece of art.
If you don't like it and aren't planning to purchase it, well, that's my own stance. As I pointed out in my post, we need to reward games that cut against this trend (portal, half-life) with sales and good reviews and not encourage ones that reinforce damaging stereotypes.
*as I explained in my post, I don't think it's 'art'. And even if it was, that doesn't shield it from criticism.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
How in the world do you imagine that telling someone their art is bad is not telling them that they should stop doing that kind of art?
There is no difference between these two except the provided reason. There is no force, no exertion, there is nothing but an opinion on the value of the work.
So the best examples you can find are of someone talking about insulting an imaginary artist, and someone saying that they're fed up with clueless sexists without actually identifying any particular person as a sexist.
If we take "personal attacks" to mean "statements that ascribe certain negative characteristics to a specific person (or group of people)", then neither of those are personal attacks.
The point is that society is based on guiding the behavior of others. The idea that talking about why a bad thing is bad should merit a mention alongside censorship is ludicrous. Persuading people is the softest possible form of influence.
Nobody denies we want things to change. We do deny that there's anything wrong with saying that out loud, which seems to be the problem here. Nobody is making threats. There is no violence. No threateninng atmosphere. The only danger is embarrassment, but god fucking forbid, right?
Edit: If you are legitimately comparing this to Mapplethorpe I'm just going to go ahead and put my head in the toaster.
I come from separate likes for history, anatomy/physiology and female warriors. I have studied the two former while the latter by warrior I mean any sort of female fighter doing physical or non-physical battle. Of course females have been present through history and fought alongside the men no matter what some people will try to tell you. And the way a warrior dresses, and the way a warrior is built no matter what gender they choose to be is relevant to my interests. Enough about me and my interests. I'm going to drop a few thoughts that are very loosely connected if at all.
The first simple thing that people can't get through their head, some basic shit really, is that the person who is the "underdog" (I'm sure there's a better word) in a conflict decides what is derogative or violating. Example: "I didn't mean any harm by drawing focus from her role as a professional and push her into the female role. It was meant as a compliment. Therefor I wasn't sexist." The person you speak to decides based upon how they feel if what you said was sexist/racist or what have you. Not you. Never. Get that basic thing and we can move on.
I would totally play a game with these guys in:
I am an avid miniature painter and recently got this comment from a ten year old girl while we were looking at miniatures: "That one has a robe so you can decide for yourself if it's a man or a woman." This is in no way a unique view of gender, but rather pretty common among children if they are allowed it and not force-fed pink and ponies for girls and cars and war for boys. Eventually they decide what gender they are. You're gonna scratch your heads at this one, I bet. But it's too large of a subject that doesn't really fit into this thread's subject and would take me too long to explain so either take it or leave it.
Expanding on miniatures however is within the scope of this thread since it's now about "the gaming industry" as a whole which I like a lot. Although chain-mail bikini clad warriors are fewer in-between nowadays they still pop up every now and then, but it's moving in the right direction. However you still see armoured, female warriors with "shell traps" between their tits which annoys me to no end, much like helmets with horns. "Yeah please make me some armour that will not deflect the blow, but rather catch the weapon and focus the force of the blow against one spot, prefferably somewhere on my body that is likely to kill me, like my head or heart."
Since I found the previous thread and read it I've learned a lot and still am. I have decided to use what I've learned to continue to (because I believe it's a longer process and not done overnight) to raise my own awareness and others. I also direct people to those who are more knowledgable and can put it better in words. I find it very hopeful that there seems to be something bigger brewing, a revolution of sorts, and that it's taking place all over the western world simultaneously.
Nobody mentioned these women yet. It's been a while since I played left 4 dead so there might have been some bad dialog that I don't remember, but overall they're pretty bad ass in the pictures here, and one out of four characters is not bad. It's better than zero, although still fewer than 50%:
So today I realized I completely forgot about Mirror's Edge. My gf's daughter is ten and has a PS3. I went to town and scourged it until I found the last copy, used and at a discount. At one of the stores where I asked for the game and I said the game was for a young girl and I ranted a bit about how there could be more games made geared towards girls/women and I would still swim in games "for me", the guy behind the counter told me of a game that I have not yet seen anyone mention in this or the previous thread. I'm cautiously optimistic, and at least hopeful about it, and will definately check it out and potentially even buy it just to support the company, depending on how it turns out. The game is called "Remember me". Here are two links that are relevant to this thread's subject:
Publishers said you can't have a female character.
How stupid is this industry..
Last but not least I would like to say that it's stupid (to put it mildly) of the marketing firms and publishers to yap about how games featuring strong female non-sexualized leads won't make money. They can't possibly know that because they have as of today not made any such games. As we all know even the "strong" female characters are either sexualized or victimized in almost all games to date.
Well, I'll get back to reading. Thanks everyone for typing.
An aesthetic critique says "I don't like that art. I think it is objectively bad for these reasons." Ultimately, people are free to make their own conclusions, and no moral issues are raised by the work.
A critique that the work harms people says "This work hurts people." E.g. "The fashion spread in vogue was bad" does not create a problematic environment for art the way saying "the fashion spread in vogue was aesthetically effective but creates beauty images that turn young girls anorexic." That creates moral opprobrium against the artist beyond merely thinking the artist is a talentless hack. It ultimately leads to self-censorship (http://businessethicsblog.com/2006/12/11/self-regulation-in-the-fashion-industry-too-skinny-models/) or state censorship (http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/hautehouse_row/Britain-bans-two-misleading-beauty-ads.html).
eh, I'd say there's a difference between professional critics who are trying to write a critique in order to sell whatever newspaper/column/blog they publish on, and critiquing an aspect that you find morally reprehensible and legitimately want changed in the future. Those authors are trying to be funny or entertaining in order to get people to read what they write. Ultimately I'd say that's not truly persuasive to whomever you're critiquing.
I like making fun of bad art/movies/music as much as the next person, but that's only valuable if you know you can't change how the person will do it in the future (see Nickleback, or Uwe Boll movies). If you're really trying to change someone's views on something important, such as the subject matter of this thread, insults tend to make people defensive and less likely to be persuaded.
I am not impressed with Dragon Crown's art here, but I'm of the opinion that society shouldn't get to determine what gets published and consumed, because one man's mapplethorpe is another man's bayonetta. Anyway, I agree with you mostly - the problem isn't in the criticism, but it's in people like Tycho pretending that their criticism isn't meant to have a silencing effect.
I tend to defend the challenged works here, not because I like them or intend to ingest them, but because I think they are within the bounds of what civilized society should allow and if people want to enjoy them, that's what a health free society must permit.
Not everyone is doing that all the time though, sometimes you might just want to say "fuck, I hate this thing", especially on a forum post where the inclination is to go hard for the purposes of rhetoric.
If I was talking directly to the artist, yeah, I might be more careful. But no one should have to tip toe around all the time in case the artist happens to be reading the penny arcade forums right now and you hurt their feelings.
If you want to address something someone is saying, talk to them. Directly to them. Doing this "well some people..." thing just means going round in circles forever.